New Record: 159 Active Rigs -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Although the NDIC active drilling rig site shows 157 active rigs today, in fact, when Rory downloaded the data to an Excel spreadsheet, he got a total of 159 rigs. There's probably a delay in reporting, and possibly the commission does not count certain rigs if they are in the process of moving. Whatever.

If Rory gets 159 active rigs, that's good enough for me.

By operator, and number of rigs (my transcribing may have resulted in a few errors) [Update: on November 18, 2010, "we" hit 160 active rigs, a new record -- I put new data in brackets, and in red.]

• Continental Resources: 20
• Whiting: 14 [15]
• EOG: 11
• Hess: 11
• Slawson: 7 [6]
• Anschutz: 6 [5]
• BEXP: 6
• MRO: 6
• Oasis: 6
• Petro-Hunt: 6
• Burlington Resources: 5
• XTO: 5
• American Oil: 4
• Encore: 4
• Newfield: 4
• Tracker: 4
• Baytex: 3
• Hunt: 3
• Samson Resources: 3
• Zenergy: 3 [4]
• KOG: 2
• Murex: 2
• North Plains: 2
• QEP: 2
• Sinclair: 2
• SM: 2 [3]
• Abraxas: 1
• Berenergy: 1
• BTA: 1
• Cornerstone: 1
• Fidelity: 1
• G3:1
• Halek:1
• Helis: 1
• Oil for America: 1
• Oxy: 1
• Peak: 1
• Prima: 1
• URSA: 1
• Zargon: 1
• Zavanna: 1

Comment: with the expense of drilling, the competition for frac crews, the competition for truck drivers, my hunch is that we will see significant consolidation in the North Dakota Bakken in 2011. What surprises me is the few rigs that some of the bigger companies have; this suggests that they are limited by acreage or frac crews: BR (COP) and XTO (XOM) are those that catch my eye.


Oasis, WLL and QEP are perhaps the most interesting at this moment.

• Oasis: growing rapidly
• QEP: a recent spin-off
• WLL: maximizing wells/section